Time outs do not necessarily work. They did not work for me, and they did not work for my sisters. I didn't take long for me to figure out that there was no one there to enforce the timeout, and that I could essentially leave whenever I wanted. And few parents have the time to sit there with their kids and make sure that it is being enforced.

Er...if your parents aren't sticking around to enforce punishments that's rather missing the point of things.

^^ Agreed. What works well on one child may backfire horribly with another, even within the same family - they're not cookie-cutter by any stretch of the imagination.

edited 23rd Feb '11 4:30:07 PM by pvtnum11

Well, yes, but do you plan to sit your child down on the stairs and then sit and stare at your child to make sure he or she doesn't move? Or even physically hold the child down? Because that's what it was coming down to. From what I understand of timeouts, most parents make sure their child follows the time out while doing something else in the same room.

I of course agree as well. I'm not a parent, but I'm one of the older children in a large family, and I have spent many summers as a camp counselor. I'd hardly call myself an expert or even ready to be a parent. But I've found that I have to use many different techniques to get different children to listen to me.

edited 23rd Feb '11 5:28:37 PM by SeventySeven

Yes - applies to adults, as well. If a manager or supervisor uses just one style of leadership, not everyone is going to respond to it at equal levels.

My wife is the oldest of six, so she ended up helping out a lot with the younger ones. We occasionally babysit for when the parents want to go out on a date or something, although that's tapered off with the second-oldest turning 21 recently. When they went on a trip, they gave us power of attorney and we basically played Legal Guardian for all of her younger siblings for two weeks. It was great - they got a cool coffeepot and loads of neat history books at their place, so I ended up reading loads of stuff and drinking their coffee.

It was hectic at times - tyring to get everyone crammed into the minivan was an experience - but since the children (wife excluded) were aged 20, 15, 11, 6 and 4, it wasn't quite a burden as I had feared. The older ones are well-adjusted and helped carry the load quite adequately, so all I had to do was stay more or less out of the way when they played and drive the minivan properly.

Agreed... in fact, if you were to generalize it, it applies to all relationships in general. You don't treat each of your friends the same way, etc.